http://www.nypost.com/seven/04172007...ionalnews_.htm
Well, apparently, according to the New York Post he had written in red ink on one of his arms, the words “
Ismail Ax” But what does this mean? The New York Post explores the question:
The reference may be to the Islamic account of the Biblical sacrifice of Abraham, where God commands the patriarch to sacrifice his own son. Abraham begins to comply, but God intervenes at the last moment to save the boy. In the Jewish and Christian traditions, the son is Isaac, father of the Jewish people; in Islam, it is his brother, Ismail (Ishmael in Hebrew). Abraham uses a knife in most versions of the story, but some accounts have him wielding an ax. A more obscure reference may be to a passage in the Koran referring to Abraham’s destruction of pagan idols; in some accounts, he uses an ax to do so.
First, as stated above, Muslims believe that they are the spiritual descendants of Abraham’s son Ishmael (or Ismail in Arabic) and not Issac. Issac is the father of, eh emm… the Jews. Muslims believe that it was Ishmael that Abraham was going to sacrifice and not Issac. So Muslims believe that they adhere to the faith of Abraham through Ishmael. And second, according to Islamic tradition, Abraham (Ibrahim in Arabic) in his early days of rejecting idolatry and paganism literally smashed the idols of his people with an ax. This was the definitive bridge burning event of Abraham’s early life. From that day forward, he was, according to Muslim belief, a Hanif - a worshipper of the One God. The story of Abraham’s smashing the idols with an ax may be read for instance at Islamicity here.
Ibrahim confronts his people and rejects their idols
He left his father after he lost hope to convert him to the right path, and directed his efforts towards the people of the town, but they rejected his call and threatened him. By Allah, he said, I shall plot a plan to destroy their idols. He knew that a big celebration was coming soon, where everybody would leave town for a big feast on the riverbank. After making sure that nobody was left in town, Ibrahim went towards the temple armed with an ax. Statues of all shapes and sizes were sitting there adorned with decorations. Plates of food were offered to them, but the food was untouched. “Well, why don’t you eat? The food is getting cold.” He said to the statues, joking; then with his ax he destroyed all the statues except one, the biggest of them. He hung the ax around its neck and left.
Or perhaps we are just jumping to conclusions here. Maybe Cho simply was trying to remind himself to buy an ax for his friend Ismail. So the killer had a clearly Islamic reference on his arm at the time of the murders. Is this enough to draw any conclusions? I would say not quite. But it needs to be discussed. There is no question that it strongly suggests that Cho had come under some Muslim influence. Did Cho Seung-Hui see himself as the ax of Ishmael? Something like this must be the case, otherwise he simply wouldn’t have written it on his arm before his rampage.
The New York Post article also provides us with evidence that Cho lived in a Muslim neighborhood:
Cho’s family lived in a two-story townhouse in Centreville, where neighbor Abdul Shash said the gunman played basketball and wouldn’t respond if someone greeted him. He was “very quiet, always by himself,” said Shash.
For now, we’ll just have to wait and see what else comes out.
